Legal Fundamentalism: Is Data Protection Really a Fundamental Right?

van der Sloot, Bart

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-50796-5_1

Bart van der Sloot⁶

Part of the book series: Law, Governance and Technology Series ((ISDP,volume 36))

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Abstract

The European Union, in its texts and communications, has mostly avoided using the terms ‘natural rights’ and ‘human rights’, instead adopting the phrase ‘fundamental rights’. The question is, however, what this concept actually entails and whether, and if so, how it differs from the more classic understanding of human rights. This question is important because data protection has been disconnected from the right to privacy in EU legislation and has been coined a fundamental right itself. The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union grants citizens the right to privacy in Article 7 and the right to data protection in Article 8. The question is what this means and whether protecting personal data should in fact be qualified as ‘fundamental’.

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Notes

1.
This section partly based on: Bart van der Sloot, Do data protection rules protect the individual and should they? An assessment of the proposed General Data Protection Regulation, International Data Privacy Law, 4 (2014).
2.
Ulrich Dammann, Otto Mallmann & Spiros Simitis (eds), Data Protection Legislation: An International Documentation: Engl.–German: eine internationale Dokumentation = Die Gesetzgebung zum Datenschutz (Frankfurt am Main: Metzner, 1977). Frits W. Hondius, Emerging Data Protection in Europe (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1975). Herbert Burkert, Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Bonn: Gesellschaft für Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung, 1983).
3.
Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Automated Personal Data Systems, Records, Computers and the Rights of Citizens (1973) <https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=479784>.
4.
See further: Allan F. Westin & Michael A. Baker, Databanks in a Free Society: Computers, Record-keeping and Privacy (New York: The New York Times Book, 1972).
5.
<https://wcd.coe.int/com.instranet.InstraServlet?command=com.instranet.CmdBlobGet&InstranetImage=589402&SecMode=1&DocId=646994&Usage=2>.
6.
<https://wcd.coe.int/com.instranet.InstraServlet?command=com.instranet.CmdBlobGet&InstranetImage=590512&SecMode=1&DocId=649498&Usage=2>.
7.
<https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=09000016800ca434>.
8.
There is considerable debate on this topic. To show the ambivalence on this point, reference can be made to the reviewers for this contribution. Reviewer 1 suggested that in the EU, data protection is and has always been directly connected to the right to private life. ‘actually the progressive recognition of personal data protection as an issue of the highest relevance (and thus deserving protection at the highest legal level) took place initially in EU law precisely through a connection to the right to respect for private life.’ Reviewer 2 took a contrasting stance. ‘The paper argues that the right data protection was increasingly disconnected from the right to privacy. While that is generally acknowledged, section 2 does not actually start that the right to DP was actually integrated with, or purely based on, the right to privacy. Indeed, several statements about the very start of DP rather suggest that it was already seen as something that could not be captured by the right to privacy as such.’
9.
See on this point the book Gloria Gonzalez Fuster, The emergence of personal data protection as a fundamental right of the EU (Springer: Dordrecht, 2014) and in particular Chap. 5.
10.
See also: Luiz Costa & Yves Poullet, ‘Privacy and the regulation of 2012’, Computer Law & Security Review, 28 (2012).
11.
Use has been made of this version of the Regulation: http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-15039-2015-INIT/en/pdf
12.
See further: Raphael Gellert & Serge Gutwirth, ‘The legal construction of privacy and data protection’, Computer Law & Security Review 29 (2013).
13.
See further: Orla Lynskey, ‘Deconstructing data protection: the ‘added-value’ of a right to data protection in the EU legal order’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly 3 (2014).
14.
Still, the CJEU often discusses the right to privacy (Article 7) and the right to data protection (Article 8) together and in close connection.
15.
See on the interpretation of the CJEU and the ECtHR Juliane Kokott and Christoph Sobotta ‘The distinction between privacy and data protection in the jurisprudence of the CJEU and the ECtHR’, International Data Privacy Law 3 (2013).
16.
Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data, Strasbourg, 28 January 1981, article 2 sub a.
17.
<http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Reports/HTML/108.htm> accessed 24 June 2014.
18.
Article 2 sub a Directive 95/46/EC.
19.
Article 4 Regulation.
20.
Article 10 Convention (1981).
21.
Article 12 Convention (1981).
22.
Article 13 Convention (1981).
23.
Article 25 Directive 95/46/EC.
24.
Article 31 Directive 95/46/EC
25.
Article 20 Directive 95/46/EC.
26.
3.2. Subsidiarity and proportionality, European Commission Proposal (2012).
27.
Articles 44–50 Regulation.
28.
Articles 51–59 Regulation.
29.
Articles 60–67 Regulation. See further: Lokke Moerel, Binding Corporate Rules Corporate Self-Regulation of Global Data Transfers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
30.
Articles 68–76 Regulation.
31.
Article 83 Regulation.
32.
It should be noted that Article 16 is limited to data processing that falls under Union law, hence this is not the legal basis for all regulation of DP.
33.
See on this topic: Gloria Gonzalez Fuster & Raphael Gellert, ‘The fundamental right of data protection in the European Union: in search of an uncharted right’, International Review of Law, Computers & Technology 26 (2012).
34.
ECJ, Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner, Case C-362/14, 6 October 2015, para.72–73.
35.
ECJ, Google Spain v. Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD), Mario Costeja González, 13 May 2014, para. 69.
36.
ECJ, Coty Germany GmbH v. Stadtsparkasse Magdeburg, Case C-580/13, 16 July 2015, para. 30–31.
37.
There is also a constant discussion about the difference between ‘human rights’ and the term ‘natural rights’, a term used by enlightenment philosophers. See among others: Richard Tuck, Natural rights theories : their origin and development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1979). John Finnis, Natural law and natural right (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1980) David George Ritchie, Natural rights: a criticism of some political and ethical conceptions (London 1895).
38.
Pavlos Eleftheriadis, Legal Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
39.
See further: A. W. Heringa & Philipp Kiiver, Constitutions compared: an introduction to comparative constitutional law (Cambridge: Portland 2012). Sascha Hardt & A. W. Heringa (eds.), Sources of constitutional law: constitutions and fundamental legislative provisions from the United States, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, including the ECHR and EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (Cambridge: Intersentia 2014). A.V. Dicey, Lectures on comparative constitutionalism (Oxford, Oxford University Press 2013).
40.
Some European countries have obviously recognized the right to data protection in their constitution. This contribution does, however, not discuss these national constitutional rights in detail. Rather, it focusses on the status of ‘fundamental’ right within the EU legislative sphere and the question of whether the right to data protection should be seen as a ‘fundamental’ right.
41.
An obvious exception is of course the is the ewigkeitsklausel in the German Constitution.
42.
See further: Vicki C. Jackson & Mark Tushnet, Comparative constitutional law (St. Paul: Foundation Press 2014). Michel Rosenfeld & András Sajó, The Oxford handbook of comparative constitutional law (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012). Walter F Murphy & Joseph Tanenhaus, Comparative constitutional law: cases and commentaries (London: Macmillan 1977).
43.
See further: Michael Freeman, Human rights : an interdisciplinary approach (Cambridge: Malden 2011). Christian Tomuschat, Human rights: between idealism and realism (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014). UN, Human rights : questions and answers (New York : United Nations 1987).
44.
See further: Andrew Fagan, Human rights: confronting myths and misunderstandings (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar 2009). Janusz Symonides (ed.) Human rights: international protection, monitoring, enforcement (Paris: UNESCO Pub. 2003) Liz Heffernan (ed.), Human rights: a European perspective (Dublin: The Round Hall Press 1994).
45.
Most recently, Hielke Hijmans has referred to the European Union as a Constitutional Guardian of privacy and data protection. Hielke Hijmans, The European Union as a Constitutional Guardian of Internet Privacy and Data Protection: the Story of Article 16 TFEU (Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Dissertation, 2016).
46.
Article 37 Charter.
47.
Article 31 Charter.
48.
Article 21 Charter.
49.
Bart van der Sloot, ‘Privacy as Personality Right: Why the ECtHR’s Focus on Ulterior Interests Might Prove Indispensable in the Age of “Big Data”’, Utrecht Journal of International and European Law, 80 (2015).
50.
Nehemiah Robinson, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: its origin, significance, application, and interpretation (New York: World Jewish Congress, 1958), p. 111–112. Albert Verdoodt, Naissance et signification de la Déclaration Universelle des droits de L’Homme (Louvain: Warny, 1964), p. 116–119.
51.
To show the level of ambivalence, Reviewer 1 to this contribution stressed: ‘It would have been better to focus explicitly on discussing what could be a ‘fundamental right of the EU’ (not a fundamental right in abstract), which is precisely something openly ‘inbetween’ constitutional (national) rights and human (international) rights, just as the EU is something sui generis ‘inbetween’ the State and international law.’ To the contrary, Reviewer 2 stressed ‘I don’t see the need for this discussion. It is fairly obvious that fundamental rights is (at least in the context of EU law) a synonym for human rights; the whole section could simply be replaced by just quoting the brief but clear answer from the FRA: http://fra.europa.eu/en/about-fundamental-rights/frequently-asked-questions#difference-human-fundamental-rights.’
52.
Gloria Gonzalez Fuster, The emergence of personal data protection as a fundamental right of the EU (Springer: Dordrecht, 2014), p. 166.
53.
<http://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/docs/pdf/a3_0064_94_en_en.pdf>.
54.
EU Network of Independent experts in fundamental rights, Report on the Situation of fundamental rights in the European Union and its member States in 2002 (Luxembourg: European Communities, 2003), p. 90–101.
55.
See among others: A. Newhall & A. Rosas (eds.), The European Union and Human Rights (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1995). M. H. Mendelson, ‘The European Court of Justice and Human Rights’, Yearbook of European Law, 125 (1981). Sionaidh Douglas-Scott, ‘The European Union and Human Rights after the Treaty of Lisbon’, 11 Human Rights Law Review 645 (2011). Andrew Williams, EU Human Rights Policies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Philip Alston (ed), The EU and Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Akos G. Toth, ‘The European Union and Human Rights: the Way Forward’, Common Market Law Review, 34 (1997).
56.
Marton Varju, European Union Human Rights law: the dynamics of interpretation and context (Northampton: Edward Elgar, 2014), p. 1.
57.
Federico Fabbrini, Fundamental Rights in Europe: challenges and transformations in comparative perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 5.
58.
David L. Perrot, ‘The logic of Fundamental Rights’, in: John W. Bridge et al. (eds.), Fundamental Rights (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1973).
59.
<http://www.europe.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/EU_and_International_Law.pdf>.
60.
<http://fra.europa.eu/en/about-fundamental-rights/frequently-asked-questions#difference-human-fundamental-rights>.
61.
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/fundamental-rights/files/networkcommentaryfinal_en.pdf, p. 90.
62.
ECJ, Digital Rights Ireland Ltd v Minister for Communications et al., Cases C-293/12 and C-594/12, 8 April 2014, para 65.
63.
Articles 10–11 Directive 95/46/EC.
64.
Note that the triviality of the processing depends on the broad scope of the notion of personal data and not on the principle of transparency or of having a legitimate purpose as such.
65.
One reviewer has suggested that under the right to privacy, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights, a number of trivial interests are also provided protection. This is absolutely true. See on this point. Bart van der Sloot, ‘The Practical and Theoretical Problems with ‘balancing’: Delfi, Coty and the redundancy of the human rights framework’, Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, 3 (2016).
66.
Article 35 para 3 (b) ECHR. http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Admissibility_guide_ENG.pdf
67.
See also: ECmHR, Trouche v France, application no. 19867/92, 1 September 1993. ECmHR, Glass v The United Kingdom, application no. 28485/95, 16 October 1996). ECtHR, Murray v The United Kingdom, application no. 14310/88, 10 December 1991.
68.
Even some more economic oriented rights contained in the Charter, such as the right to intellectual property, are regulated on the level of a Directive instead of a Regulation.
69.
Article 57 Regulation.
70.
Article 58 Regulation.

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Bart van der Sloot

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Law, Science, Technology, & Society (LSTS), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Brussels, Belgium
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van der Sloot, B. (2017). Legal Fundamentalism: Is Data Protection Really a Fundamental Right?. In: Leenes, R., van Brakel, R., Gutwirth, S., De Hert, P. (eds) Data Protection and Privacy: (In)visibilities and Infrastructures. Law, Governance and Technology Series(), vol 36. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50796-5_1

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